The ongoing development of data networks often involves enabling greater connectivity by expanding the area covered by a network and/or improving the robustness of accessible coverage within a particular area. Wireless access points (APs) simplify the deployment network infrastructure equipment and enable rapid installation and/or expansion of a network within a coverage area. As a result, various data networks, from local area networks (LANs) to virtual LANs and wide area networks (WANs), now often include a number of wireless APs. Wireless APs also facilitate client device mobility by providing relatively seamless access to a network throughout a coverage area.
Wireless APs typically operate in accordance with WiFi network standards, such as the variants specified under IEEE 802.11. While WiFi networks have proven to be useful for providing and extending network coverage, WiFi networks do not include the same operational management rules that define the operation of cellular wireless networks. For example, WiFi network standards do not provide the same strict specifications for channel usage, channel reuse, and transmission power levels that are found in standards defining cellular wireless networks. Also, the topology of a WiFi network is often unknown or merely vaguely known from an operational perspective because wireless APs are typically deployed in an ad hoc manner in relatively small areas, and are loosely controlled if at all. By contrast, cellular networks are methodically planned, deployed and managed for larger geographically defined coverage areas. So even if rules were provided in the pertinent WiFi standards, the ad hoc nature and loose operational control of a typical WiFi deployment would undermine such rules concerning channel usage, channel reuse, and transmission power levels of multiple APs. Consequently, when multiple wireless APs are located relatively close to one another in the same space interference is often an issue that limits network performance and/or roaming of client devices within the coverage area provided by the combination of wireless APs.
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